Chapter Seventeen
Max chooses this exact moment to sit in the chair across the table from me.
‘I’ve been trying to find a good time to talk all—’
The rest of his words are muffled by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. The video finished, my screen fills with more of Cassidy’s selfies. Blinking furiously, I’m suddenly overcome by the mortifying realisation that I’m about to cry.
Without a word, I shoot to my feet.
‘Wait, where—’ Max starts, but I ignore him as I sprint into the Mane Grill.
The siren in my brain is wailing at me to run, run, run, but I’ve only just gotten my job back. I can’t abandon my shift now.
The new recruits are gathered around a table in the main restaurant.
They watch silently as I storm into the back office.
The pressure inside me feels loud, explosive, too big for shoving my head in my locker, so I wrench open the heavy, pressurised door to the walk-in freezer and rush inside.
Goosebumps swell on my exposed arms, the chill stinging my skin.
Tears pour out of me immediately, racking my body with big, ugly sobs.
I am so stupid.
It wasn’t that Avery didn’t want to break her deal with Cassidy to go to prom with anyone. She just didn’t want to break the deal to go with me. And Shane freaking Bartley? The guy who set off fireworks in his garage and accidentally burned half his house down?
Elliott said Shane and Avery had hooked up a while ago, that they’d been hanging out.
This means that in all the time she’s been meeting up with me, Avery’s been going to Shane’s lacrosse games.
Which is fine – our whole arrangement is based around the silent agreement that nothing about it is serious.
We aren’t even supposed to like each other.
But somehow, I let myself think I was in love with her. How could I be so stupid?
The knock on the door is muted, barely a thud beneath the freezer’s thick, metal door.
I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes, suck in a steadying breath.
‘I’m just grabbing something, Rick,’ I shout, though my voice is weak.
The door swings open anyway, but it’s not Rick who shuffles inside. It’s Max.
Once the door is closed behind him, he wraps his arms around his chest and swears quietly. ‘Not Rick, sorry,’ he says, shivering.
The walk-in freezer is essentially a big metal box, about six feet long and three feet wide.
Metal shelves line each wall, and are stacked with air-tight tubs of chopped-up vegetables: red peppers, spinach, corn and tomatoes all crusted over with a thin layer of frost. My cheeks burn with the cold.
I swipe my eyes with the back of my hand, but I can tell by the way Max looks at me that he’s already seen the tears.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘I’m fine,’ I say quickly.
His look of concern doesn’t go away.
‘I’m fine,’ I repeat. ‘My friend sent me a sad dog video.’
‘Oh,’ he says, shrugging. ‘I just kind of figured when you stormed off the second I sat down, you were doing the whole thing again where you act like you hate me for some reason I know nothing about.’ He gestures between the two of us with one hand, the other still wrapped tightly around his torso.
‘Which to be honest, I thought we’d gotten over yesterday, after I saw you throw pizza at a minotaur—’
‘Be quiet,’ I hiss.
Despite his attempt at nonchalance, it’s obvious there’s genuine worry behind his eyes.
I don’t know if it’s this, the way he’s been ignoring me all day, or the fact that I even need to be around him at all, to break a big freaking love curse, but that same sudden flash of anger from yesterday burns in me again.
I can taste the rest of my retort on my tongue: Believe it or not, my life doesn’t revolve around you.
But instead of letting that fire ignite again, I carefully swallow it down.
This is my second chance at getting close to Max, and I can’t blow it.
‘Sorry,’ Max whispers loudly.
‘Well, it – it didn’t. Have anything to do with you,’ I say, my anger dissolving into exhaustion.
The string of late nights, trying and mostly failing at being nice to Max Taylor, seeing Avery kiss Shane freaking Bartley.
Being, um, cursed. It’s too much. ‘And I don’t,’ I mumble. ‘Hate you, I mean.’
At least not as much as I hate your dad.
Max’s face lightens. ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ he says, rubbing his arms. ‘Because I have something to show you.’
After the walk-in freezer, Max and I agree to talk more once my shift finishes and we won’t have to worry about Rick or anyone else overhearing.
On the walk across Rock Creek Park, I try to keep the conversation with him light, ask questions and make Max think I’m just a normal, friendly person, not someone who’s trying to weasel my way closer to his dad.
‘So, you used to work at the Georgetown F’resh?’ I ask.
Max nods. ‘My manager was more or less exactly like Rick,’ he says, ‘except swap out the guinea pigs and reality TV for protein powder and anime.’
Now, Max explains, he’s taking a year off between high school and college to learn more about MENtal, which is how he fell into planning the gala.
When he talks about having sat in on some of the therapy sessions the charity runs, I bite my tongue to keep from asking if his dad had fallen in love with and cursed any of the people there too. But at least I’m not crying any more.
It only takes Tyler about thirty seconds to decide he isn’t going to maul Max, which is most likely down to the fact that I give Max the pizza to offer up as a kind of please-don’t-rip-my-legs-off olive branch.
After he suspiciously sniffs the bag, followed by Max’s entire arm and then his face, on which Tyler leaves behind wet nose prints and a streak of slobber, Tyler tears the pizza box from Max’s hands and shuffles inside the cave.
I inform Max that this can be considered a tacit invitation or, at the very least, a basic tolerance of his presence.
Tyler and I settle on the sleeping bag as I pull out the hairbrush in my backpack.
Max has started babbling about something, but I’m barely listening, too preoccupied with finding music to play on my phone.
Once I’ve landed on the Cure album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, I begin brushing the fur on Tyler’s back in long, clean strokes.
I can practically feel all the muscles in his body relaxing.
Max hoists up his backpack triumphantly. ‘—So, I thought I’d bring it all here and we could at least try. I mean, it won’t hurt, right?’
I nod enthusiastically, as though I have any idea what he’s talking about.
He sets his backpack down in front of him and reaches his arm in, rooting around.
One by one, he pulls out a large water bottle, a salt shaker shaped like a dachshund, and five small brown paper envelopes labelled in scratchy handwriting: patchouli, mugwort, wormwood, hyssop and basil.
‘The guy at the shop said they’re all legit.’ Max zips his backpack up. ‘But he also had a rat tail, so, you know, who can really say.’
My brushing slows as I frown down at what appear to be the ingredients for the world’s worst salad. ‘And this is for … ?’ I trail off, setting the brush in my lap. ‘Sorry. What is happening right now?’
Max pulls his phone out of his hoodie pocket and taps the screen before handing it to me.
It’s an article titled How to Remove Black Magic Spells, complete with pictures that look like they were drawn with Microsoft Paint.
Max scrambles over to my side and scrolls down to step five: take a magic herb bath.
‘I was looking it up last night, and there’s clearly some kind of spell going on here, something that’s making Tyler turn into a minotaur dog …
thing.’ His voice is fevered in my ear. ‘So, I figured we could mix this stuff up to help cleanse him of all the bad juju.’ He retrieves the bottle of water and holds it up to the lantern.
‘I mean, they didn’t have any Holy Water at 7-Eleven, so I had to settle for Smartwater. But it was that or Gatorade, so …’
He’s talking so fast, I almost can’t keep up.
Max unscrews the cap on the Smartwater and takes a long drink. ‘Do you think Tyler’ll flip out if we pour this stuff on him?’
My brain suddenly feels hazy around the edges. Max brought a bottle of fancy water and half of Target’s spice aisle to the cave to … help Tyler?
‘I’m sorry, we?’ I say, his words suddenly striking me. ‘When did this become a we thing? You found out about magic last night and you’re already doing Google searches about curse-breaking?’
He tears a corner of the envelope marked wormwood and taps it delicately over the opened water bottle. A few brownish flakes drop in. ‘You don’t just follow a girl into the woods, see her feed pizza to a demon fur ball,’ he glances up at Tyler, ‘no offence, and then walk away.’
As Max sprinkles in each herb, biting his lip in concentration, I’m too stunned to speak.
Max wants to help with Tyler. Max has volunteered to help with Tyler.
All the makeshift pick-up lines I devised, the ploys to befriend him – none of it matters.
Because here is Max, actually coming up with a perfectly plausible reason for us to hang out, no persuasion needed.
It’s perfect. Nothing brings people together like a shared goal.
And maybe he’ll actually have some decent ideas on how to break the curse.
Granted, he thinks the curse is on Tyler and not on me, and he doesn’t know his dad cast it, but that’s a good thing.
All the herbs now dumped into the Smartwater, Max twists the cap back on and shakes the bottle over his shoulder like a bartender mixing cocktails. The flakes inside tornado-swirl as he unscrews the cap again and lifts the open bottle to his nose.
‘Oh God, that’s disgusting,’ he says, wincing.
‘Yeah, I am not dumping that on my head,’ I say.
‘Why would we pour it on your head?’
Crap. ‘For solidarity,’ I rush. ‘You know, so Tyler doesn’t feel alone.’
Tyler pinches a pepperoni slice between his claws and looks at me from underneath his fluffy bangs. I swear to God he rolls his eyes.